I have very fine 3a/b curls that get stringy or weighed down easily with the wrong products. I bought some of this in the store and put it on DRY hair... my hair is not crunchy and it is so shiny! Love!!!

I just picked this up. Even though I prefer natural and more organic products, I wanted to give it a shot since waterlily716 endorsed it for winter and low dews. And I live amidst those dry dry dews. I guess I'll try it out the day after tomorrow. I'm excited now.

So this morning I used this diluted with some water to refresh my curls when I woke up. It gave me great curl reactivation but left a slight crunch. Probably best to apply sopping wet and not reapply the next day then. Also can somebody tell me if there's protein in it? There seems to be some discrepancy in the ingredients listed here on naturally curly (on the product review database) and on the actual bottle that I bought.

Also two ingredients acrylates copolymer and disodium edta have moved further down the list but then that's mainly because of the removal of the other three ingredients now that I look at it. So it's not as though there's less of these two. . .

So even though I got a bit of a crunch with this gel today, it's not a dry unsavory crunch like I get with the argan ecostyler or the devagel. (Both of which contain protein.) It's hard to explain. . . My hair still feels healthy and hydrated when I play with it in spite of the gel cast. But that could also be because the gel's glycerin free maybe

Thanks Jules! I'm happy to report I believe this product is protein free, and the only humectant I can recognize from the ingredient list is laureth-23. I had this product in my hair for second through third day hair and I when I went to wash it this morning (fourth day hair) my hair was not dried out at all. Seemed very happy and soft. But that might be becausae in addition to the AIF, I also had KCKT, KCCC and SMCES in my hair, all of which are very moisturizing products. In any case, with Aussie both the second and third day hair looked great. I'm using it today instead of my KCCC as an experiment and even though it's still rather wet it looks all right. Good curl formation. No frizz whatsoever even with that polyquat. However I may not repurchase the Aussie gel because I prefer more natural ones (and those that haven't been tested on animals.) Plus the synthetic cherry scent rather annoys me. I did however run this item through the Cosmetic Safety Database and it got a 4 rating which is not too high and relatively safe. But I also have some pattern pusha gel coming my way via post and if that product can provide the extra hold and I fall in love with it then I'll just use this up. Or keep it just in case. But so far it's promising and nice to know there's a drugstore standby gel that's protein free for my hair! How exciting!